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I have always enjoyed attending worship – even as a child. I am sure that I was rowdy as a child and was difficult for my parents to handle. I remember sitting in the largely empty balcony of a very large Gothic sanctuary, making paper airplanes with the bulletin and letting them fly low, hoping and praying one did not catch wind and swoop over the balcony rail and down on the congregation below. Daring!

I almost always enjoy worship: the pageantry, the singing of the hymns, the sermon, the prayers, the sacred spaces. I went to worship during college. I’ll normally even attend worship when the family is on vacation – usually alone. (Okay, Megan goes with me sometimes!) I simply love it.

I am in that bewildered group who doesn’t understand why people do not attend worship on Sunday morning. But I have a feeling I know why: there are some folks who go to worship only to “get” and “take”; there are others who go to “give” and see worship as our primary service to God. If you are going to worship to “get” and “take,” then you will tend to be critical: maybe you’ll think that the music dragged, the sermon was not creative, the pews were hard, parking was tight, the landscaping was poor, because you are judging the experience based on what you want for yourself. You are the judge, jury and prosecuting attorney!

However, if you go as a service to God, then your perspective changes and your dominate concern is: how am I doing? How am I singing the hymns? How am I paying attention? How will I apply the sermon in my life? How is God hearing my prayers? And you understand that the only judge of worship this particular morning is the Creator! Was God present and did God enjoy what was offered ?

I once asked an old preaching professor who had listened to over a hundred thousand sermons (his estimation) what he did or thought when he was listening to a bad sermon. He said, “I put my head down in my hands and I pray for the preacher.” Well, next time I look out at the congregation during a sermon and see people with their heads down, I won’t assume they are asleep. I’ll imagine they are praying for me!

I suggest the next time your alarm goes off on Sunday: you ask yourself – not what do I need for my spiritual journey? But ask yourself: what do I need to do this morning to make God’s joy complete?

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